Sapphire officially announces its Radeon R9 285 lineup

With AMD's official launch of the new Tonga Pro based Radeon R9 285 graphics card it was just a matter of time before we see some official announcements from AMD's AIB partners. Today Sapphire announced a total of four new Radeon R9 285 graphics cards, two Dual-X Edition and two new ITX Compact Edition versions.

In case you missed it back when it was officially announced, AMD's 28nm Tonga Pro GPU features 1792 Stream Processors, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs and a 256-bit memory interface which will be paired up with either 2 or 4GB of GDDR5 memory. The reference clocks are set at 918MHz for the GPU and 1375MHz (5.5GHz effective) for the memory.

Sapphire's Radeon R9 285 lineup includes two Dual-X Edition graphics cards, the Sapphire Dual-X R9 285 and the Dual-X R9 285 OC as well as two new ITX Compact Edition graphics cards, the R9 285 ITX Compact and the R9 285 ITX Compact OC Edition. All four feature the same 2GB of GDDR5 memory while, as expected, OC Editions also feature a slightly higher GPU and memory clocks.

The standard Sapphire Dual-X R9 285 sticks to reference 918MHz for the GPU and 5.5GHz for the memory while the Dual-X R9 285 OC Edition is factory-overclocked to 965MHz for the GPU and 5.6GHz for the memory. As a part of Sapphire's well known Dual-X series, this one comes with the Dual-X cooler which features a set of heatpipes with graduated size as well as two aerofoil fans and should keep the power-efficient Tonga Pro well cooled.

The new Sapphire ITX Compact series may appeal to many consumers. Developed for SFF PC systems, the Radeon R9 ITX Compact Edition feature a custom 171mm long PCB paired up with a custom four heatpipe cooler with a single center placed fan. The ITX Compact Edition still takes up two slots, but should be perfect for compact gaming systems.

While Sapphire R9 285 ITX Compact sticks to reference clocks for both the GPU and the memory, the R9 285 ITX Compact OC Edition even features a slight factory overclock which puts the GPU at 928MHz, 10MHz over the reference clocked one. Unfortunately, the 2GB of GDDR5 memory remained at 5.5GHz.

Unfortunately, Sapphire did not reveal any details regarding the price or the availability date but you can expect them on retail shelves as of September 2nd with a price of around US $249.